Quote Originally Posted by Lastdingo View Post
If the loss of a sanctuary is so easily compensated for, then it's most likely not a critical loss. The interesting weak point needs to be searched somewhere else than in something that's so easily replaced. Supporting states can hardly count as sanctuary unless they act as operations base as in the similar Hezbollah example.
A planned transition of sanctuaries is not the same as an unplanned loss. Systematic denial of sanctuaries is historically a successful strategy in counter-guerrilla ops, going all the way back to the English versus the Welsh centuries ago.

Supporting states can represent a form of sanctuary, especially in a highly decentralized system like AQ when enabled by modern communications and transportation.

Tacitus nailed it with the observation that AQ is not monolithic. Al Qaeda, The Base, is just that; a finacial, training, and philosophical/religious base for Sunni extremism. Traditional patterns of guerrilla organization resemble a old fashioned computer network with one node setting the clock and the other nodes falling in on it, and occasionally there would be a guerrilla organization like more modern networks where the nodes would be more autonomous. AQ is more like a petri dish for a highly contagious disease. AQ feeds the disease, but the spores spread the disease and cause the damage. Please, please, please don't read too much into the analogy, it's just an attempt to describe the high degree of autonomy of cells supported by AQ, and the way it propogates.

The strategic solution is "immunizing hosts"; changing conditions in countries that provide sanctuary so that they will stop providing sanctuary. And the cornerstone of this is twofold; education and economies. Military operations can only provide time and space for the diplomatic/informational/economic facets of the solution.

The challenge presented by the organization (or lack of organization) of AQ is that it makes some very ugly solutions sound viable. The attitudes and beliefs of these coward mufsid who practice hirabah create a situation where the West's willingness to negotiate is frustrated at every turn. As the incidents of violence add up, the options appear to be reduced. The unwillingness of AQ and affiliates to negotiate or consider compromise, combined with it's invasive and, for lack of a better word, contagious nature invites the use of words like "extermination" and "annihilation".